The Ministry of Education will have a definitive solution by tomorrow regarding the eligibility of National Taiwan University president-elect Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) to assume the position, Minister of Education Wu Maw-kuen (吳茂昆) told the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday.
Kuan was on Jan. 5 elected the university’s president and was to assume the post on Feb. 1, but the ministry deferred ratification of his appointment, citing three points of contention: It was alleged that Kuan withheld information from the committee that he was an independent member of Taiwan Mobile’s board of directors; there were doubts about the fairness of the election committee’s procedures; and there were questions about the legality of a teaching position Kuan held at China’s Xiamen University while he was a government-contracted professor.
The controversy led to the resignation of former minister of education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠), who cited politically motivated attacks on the ministry.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Kuan’s capability, as well as his eligibility, to head the nation’s most prestigious university has come under question as he has withheld important information regarding his candidacy, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said.
Cross-strait academic exchanges by Taiwanese universities should observe the regulations, and the ministry should strictly regulate these exchanges while applying the same standards and principles across the board, Chen said.
A speedy resolution to the issue is necessary, but the final decision should not be made for the sake of expediency, DPP Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said.
The Chinese are helping Kuan conceal many of his dealings due to parlous state of cross-state relations, she said, adding that Taiwanese investigators should stick to the evidence that has come to light.
The president of the NTU is the leader of Taiwanese academia and any solution regarding such a position should be reach with the utmost care, Rosalia Wu added.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said there seemed to be a double standard as to how the ministry handled the controversy, while accusing Wu Maw-kuen of purposefully highlighting procedural flaws during the election to provide the premise for asking the university to hold a new election.
A second cross-departmental meeting was convened yesterday, demanding that Academia Sinica and the university provide the files on Kuan’s application to visit China, Wu Maw-kuen said.
The ministry would not approve Kuan’s election if his actions have broken the law, he said.
The legislature’s Education and Culture Committee has passed a motion demanding that the ministry provide uniform regulations for the evaluation of cross-strait academic exchanges.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Civil Service said that up until May last year, 1,516 civil servants have been found to hold part-time jobs illicitly, of which 42 had been impeached by the Control Yuan.
It said last year it launched an investigative platform to probe whether civil servants are working in part-time jobs in China, but added that the platform has proven to have many “blind spots.”
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